Color-Coded For Your Convenience

I'm not going to forget to post in October. I'm going to sneak in at the very end of the month.

So where are we?

Oh right, I'm going to rewrite my vampire novel next month, and I'm woefully unprepared.

I've been trying to fill in some of the plot gaps with… something. And I've realized… not quite a solution, but perhaps a path to a solution. There are some characters that just disappear for big chunks of the book. This realization led me to go on a quest for my colored pencils at one in the morning, but I think I'm onto something.

I have now color-coded all the scenes on my corkboard based on who is in them (aside from the main character, because he's in all of them). So now I can easily see who we haven't seen in a while.

I know there's at least one character who is fairly important to how the world works, who just vanishes for most of the story. They have faded so much into the background that I completely forgot their name. And I only have like eight named characters. Eleven if you count those who only exist in flashbacks.

This exercise did make me think about who is actually present in each scene. Like, some cards just basically say, "A thing happens," but I know in my brain where it happens, that also implies that certain characters will be there.

I have also realized which characters don't interact with each other. Which, sure, is true to life, because I know I had various separate friend groups who each didn't know the others existed. But this is a very small cast. And I really need them to come together for… reasons.

Well, I have a few ideas percolating now, so I'd best get back to that. I only have a few days left, after all.

I'll see you in November, when hopefully I will be successfully writing a novel.